Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Death in August (Inspector Bordelli Mystery) by Marco Vichi

Death in August is a book with an identity crisis:it is a psychological novel dressed up as a
police procedural but marketed as a cozy mystery novel.The original Italian books, less bound by genre,
have dark covers reflecting the dark themes in the series.The English translations offered as Kindle
editions sport cozy mystery watercolor covers with a nostalgic tint that
completely misrepresent the books' contents.

The series is set in the past, in the 1960s to be precise,
and it is set there for a reason:to
allow Italians to laugh, sometimes wryly, at their former selves, with the
benefit of hindsight from the perspective of the world today looking back on a
seemingly ancient time.So much social,
political and economic change has occurred since the 1960s that looking back on
those years really does feel like we are observing an ancient culture.

Book Two in the Inspector Bordelli Mystery Series

In Death in August, we get to observe how women were
non-existent in the workplace, men smoked like chimneys, one could drink
alcohol at work, safely married women could flaunt themselves at men for
self-validation or to make their husband jealous and attentive, men could ogle
women as if they were going to attack them without anyone thinking it odd, drunks
were left to wander neighborhoods until they died of the disease, DDT was used
in most every home to kill mosquitoes, veterans of wars suffered their PTSDs
without any help and with people just looking the other way when they acted
odd, and so on and so on...

The scene that is likely misunderstood the most by
English-speaking readers is one in which an old bomb-maker for the Italian WWII
Resistance laments that young people in Italy lack the courage to fight with
violence, if necessary, for the country and for their ideals.Non-Italians might see the scene as a lament
by a retired soldier for the lazy, luxury-loving youth he sees around him in
post-war Italy.But for the Italian
reader, the scene would produce a wry laugh, because they know that within a
decade or so, young Italians would be planting bombs, killing people, kidnapping
people and posting manifestos all over Italy, calling themselves the Red
Brigades terror group, and acting against all they see as bad in their country.

Book Three in the Inspector Bordelli Mystery Series

Much is lost in the translation, although the translator
provides some footnotes collected at the back of the text to explain some
cultural reference.I was not happy with
the translation.There were errors in
punctuation, paragraphing, and phrasing.There were a handful of typos.And the translator seemed oblivious of the subjunctive form in English.

The protagonist of the series is a police inspector named
Bordelli.We learn that he was a
sensitive, dreamy boy who was repeatedly sexually abused when he was eight
years old, by a household maid.The
scenes are excruciating to read, and I am amazed that I see no mention of these
scenes in any reviews, nor any mention of them in the book's description.

Unlike the oblivious writer of the Stephanie Plum novels,
who put a similar abuse scene in her first book in her series, the author of
the Inspector Bordelli Mystery Series understands the long-term effect this
kind of abuse can have on a person, and he links it directly to his
protagonist's character.

Book Four in the Inspector Bordelli Mystery Series in its cozy-covered form

So, Bordelli is often self-destructive, destructive of his
emotional attachments to women, infantile-like and passive in his more
prolonged relationship with a woman who is a former prostitute who pampers him
no doubt because she has had her fill of macho men.Bordelli is fifty-three, unmarried, lonely,
unhappy with the state of Italy, scared by the war and his PTSD and by the
childhood abuse he suffered.

Bordelli is haunted by his time in the Italian Resistance
during the Italian Civil War that was low-level at the beginning of WWII, and
very hot following Italy's surrender to the Allies.He suffers chronic insomnia and
flashbacks.His colleagues accept all
this with good grace, but also with deep concern for the man's health.Bordelli is a haunted, disturbed man who will
probably never find much peace.

The colleagues and assorted group of walking-wounded friends
of Bordelli's know that the man may be damaged goods, but he is good at police
work.He also has a very moral
perspective on the law that allows him to bend it when justice would be better
served that way.Here is Bordelli
telling his boss why he lets some poor criminals walk, now and then:

"Let me tell you something, Dr. Inzipone.When I returned from the war, I hoped I had
done my small part to liberate Italy from the shit we were in; but now all I
see is mountains of shit, everywhere..."

...

Inzipone eyed him, clenching his teeth.He knew there was little he could do about
Bordelli's methods, because he was, after all, an excellent inspector, he was
loved by the entire department, and everybody knew that, in the end, he was
right, there was too much poverty about.

I enjoyed the author's prose style.The narration is third-person limited, so we
get to see into Bordelli's mind, memories, fleeting thoughts, daydreams and
nightmares.Here are some examples:

It pleased him to see that things, and not only
people, suffered the wear and tear of age.

The young were all fleeing the countryside to work in
the city.Nobody seemed to want to live
any more between the soil and the cow pats.

Nominally, the book is a police procedural, with the usual
introduction of a case, the forensic details, the victims, the suspects, the
investigations, etc.But these are just
things to give some structure to a novel that is really about the man,
Bordelli, and his demons.The murder case is
not very challenging or mysterious.We
spend most of our time just hanging out with Bordelli and his odd group of male
friends, and roaming the 1960s.

There are long sections in the book about the war and
Bordelli's war experiences.There are
just as many parts of the book about meals and especially one, long, elaborate
dinner-party that Bordelli throws for his buddies, that is little more than a
long drinking bout interspersed by some food.

Like Andrea Camillieri's books featuring police commissioner
Montalbano (Camillieri writes an endorsement of the series on the cover of the
book), the universe in Death in August is richly male, with women appearing
only as disruptions to the delicately balanced workings of male-ville.The women are described from the outside
only, since the insides are a complete mystery to the men.

About the book's identity crisis... I enjoyed the book for
the psychological novel that it was; it was meaty, intelligent, honest, and
wryly funny.For a police procedural, it
was lacking in suspense and mystery. And
it is in no way, shape, or form a cozy murder mystery.Know what you are buying if you choose to buy
this book!I hope this review helps.

These are the books in the Inspector Bordelli Mystery Series
so far:

Death in August (set in summer 1963)

Death and the Olive Grove (set in April 1964)

Death in Sardinia (set in December 1965)

Death in the Tuscan Hills (set in 1967)

From Death in August's description:

A new crime series full of Italian flavor – the first novel
in the Inspector Bordelli series, set in 1960s Florence.

Florence, summer 1963. Inspector Bordelli is one of the few
detectives left in the deserted city. He spends his days on routine work and
his nights tormented by the heat and mosquitoes. With the help of his young
protégé, the victim’s eccentric brother, and a semi-retired petty thief, the
inspector begins a murder investigation. Each suspect has a solid alibi, but
there is something that doesn’t quite add up...

Grab a Cup and Read

About This Review Site

I am Candida Martinelli, and I review books set in Italy or Ancient Rome, or about Italy and Italian culture, or about hyphenated Italian culture. My site is family-friendly. Authors and publishers please click the image to visit my Contact and Reviews page.

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